7/16/2002 @ 6:00PM

Steve Jobs Goes To The Oscars

Some serious filmmakers eschew advertising, likening it to a crass cousin of their own craft, but not
Errol
Morris
Errol Morris
. In fact, he actually pitched
Apple Computer
on the idea of doing ads featuring regular folks talking about moving to Macintosh–and was turned down.

“I pitched the idea to [Apple advertising agency] TBWA/Chiat Day years ago, and I don’t know if it ever made it to [Chief Executive Steve] Jobs,” says Morris, who is considered the dean of American documentaries, having made The Thin Blue Line, Mr. Death and Fast, Cheap and Out of Control, among others. “But I never heard back from them.”

Eventually Morris’ idea did get to Jobs–via the unlikely route of the Academy Awards. “I got tired of waiting around to use my idea of lighting people to make them seem very real in the frame,” he says, “and creating a combination of simplicity and maybe a certain kind of truth telling. So when I was asked to do a short film for the Oscars, I did it.”

The result was the opening segment for this year’s show, featuring a mix of 100 people including
Mikhail
Gorbachev
Mikhail Gorbachev
,
Donald
Trump
Donald Trump
and
Iggy
Pop
Iggy Pop
, as well as regular folk who spoke naturally to the camera about what the movies mean to them. The piece was a hit and got tons of critical acclaim. It also caught the eye of one audience member in particular,
Steve
Jobs
Steve Jobs
, who wanted his next campaign to use a similar format and style.

“There was certainly an irony in all of this,” says Morris. “Years later I finally reached my intended audience by accident, and he told me he wanted to use my idea.”